Breathe No More
by ninajunkie
Summary: Draco wonders where his soul is and if he can ever get it back. AU. During HBP.


For a reason unknown to myself, I continue staring into this aged mirror. In a quick flicker in my mind, I think that I have been standing here for years, pieces of my past forgotten and my reasoning completely lost. All I see is the aged face of an innocent five year old. How in the hell did I make it this far?

The more I look, the more the lines of my face become blurry. The longer I stare, the more I wonder how well my future would have gone if I had taken different steps. Would I still have ended up in this blasted bathroom, desperately wishing that I had the courage to end my life?

My soul is no longer living in my body. There is this intense pulsing coming from the mirror and with every living fibre I have left in my body, I know the truth.

I have no soul.

What I have left is no longer recognisable and I can see a gleam of my soul on the other side. Instead of looking into lifeless gray eyes, for a quick second I see bright blue ones with a fire hidden beneath.

I had tried for so long. I tried to fake it.

They were all beginning to see the changes in me, even though they had happening for years.

I hated what I was looking at.

How could it be that this little boy was so damaged?

Picking up the only thing I could think of—a loose stone from the floor—I throw it at the mirror. The glass shatters into a million pieces, all of them falling around me. I see bits of my reflection in the tiny pieces of the shards of glass and continue to wonder how the flying _fuck_ I managed to see this day.

For a moment, I feel compelled to gather all the pieces into my hands and attempt to put them back together. I wonder if my plans will become as shattered as these pieces if I continue to break down like this.

If every time I fail to see how in the world I could benefit from this, I become like this... there will be nothing left in a few weeks.

These pieces are too small to even begin to fathom putting together. I grab my wand in my hand, but it is no use. These pieces will never be able to fit together again.

I keep looking for some damned reason into these fragments of a reflection and I imagine that my soul is just as it looks like. Broken. Rubbish. A waste. A failure at everything that I have attempted. This is my one last chance to try and do something, despite how fucked up and twisted it is.

I suddenly hear footsteps close by. They are entering this unused restroom and the first person that pops in my mind is Potter. He has been following me insistently this year.

Instead, I see a head of fuzzy brown hair in a few of the fragments lying on the floor and I realise that it is _her_.

She shouldn't have come.

I ended things with her so long ago, that it seems like another lifetime.

My eyes close, silently willing her away, to keep her away from all of the pain that I have caused her and will continue to cause her.

Instead of leaving, she walks towards me, the sound of her footsteps echoing into each of the empty and open stalls.

She doesn't need to say anything for me to know that she is waiting for me to speak first.

Not handling the pressure growing around us, I turn to face her.

I instantly regret it because all I see in Granger's face is worry, empathy, selfishness, and apologies.

She wants to help me and save me from this life I am destined to lead. I tell her time and time again that if we both survive the end, then maybe we can look at each other with unclouded vision. But now, all I can do is drown myself in bleeding water.

She steps closer and I can feel her hot breath on the skin exposed through the top of my cloak.

Without thinking, without worrying of my father, my mother, or _Voldemort, _I turn to her.

My hand reaches forward without my brain processing what I am doing and I get so close to the soft and warm skin of her cheek.

I try and try again, but I cannot will myself to get any closer. I feel the open wounds in my hands as though I have been punished and I can almost imagine the bright red blood drip through the air and hit the cold floor with a loud reverberating sound.

I bleed.

I continue to bleed.

Even though it is all in my head, it feels so real and my nonexistent soul rips apart into a million pieces at the thought of living my pathetic life without her.

She asks me to stop.

I breathe no more.

I stop breathing because I want to give into her so inadequately. But all I am is a coward.

And all I can give to her in return is another question: how much does she love me?

She points out that she loves the man in the mirror; the man that I had told her for six years that I wanted to be, the man that my soul has been left with. She wants so desperately to be with me, but we cannot follow each other as we walk different paths.

Her dark brown eyes flash angry as I stubbornly refuse to join her _Order_ and continue to stare at the mirror

I bleed more.

I see the innocent eyes through the cracks beginning to dissolve into sallow pits and for once I see myself for how I really am.

I bleed even more.

My soul breaks into even smaller piece as she walks away.

She took so many parts of my soul and I pray for once in my life, that one day she can put them back together again.


End file.
